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The History of the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concerts
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's New Year‘s Concert is by far the most popular of this orchestra's functions, but also Austria's most noteworthy cultural export. In 1984 Austrian Radio estimated the size of the Concert's radio and television audience to be around 400-million. Now, thanks to satellite television, the number is growing steadily. In 1990 the two television programs of the Peoples Republic of China tuned in and pushed the number of viewers over the magic 1,000-million mark. Taking into account the delayed transmission of Chinese Television's Second Program, estimates now vary between 800- and 1,200-million.
Throughout the world the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year‘s Concert is without doubt the most widely-seen and -heard of all regular musical presentations. Inside Austria it constitutes an important part of the nation's cultural identity. It is not only the Letters to the Editors columns of the country's daily newspapers that reflect how hotly the event is debated year after year. What Philharmonic quality should be, and what duty is or is not owed to tradition is also passionately discussed by many who otherwise never attend a single Philharmonic concert.
The early history of the New Years Concerts is the history of a changeable, and, at the beginning, not unproblematical relationship between the Vienna Philharmonic and Johann Strauss. At first the Waltz King and Vienna's renowned orchestra were divided by the arbitrary boundary-line between "Light" and "Serious" music. Only the most strenuous efforts finally brought together the two contrasting sides of Vienna's music life.
It was November 4th, 1873, when Johann Strauss made his first appearance on the podium of the Royal Imperial Court Opera Orchestra.
In a concert arranged by the "Chinese World Exhibition Commission" he shared conducting honors with Court Conductor Otto Dessoff, with Johann Herbeck, Director of the Royal Imperial Court Opera Orchestra, and with Concertmaster Joseph Hellmesberger.
"The Romanticists" by Josef Lanner, the "Spanish Nobleguard March" by Johann Strauss the Elder, and the "Blue Danube" Waltz were played under the baton of Royal Imperial Court-Ball Director Johann Strauss.
Eduard Hanslick, Vienna's leading critic, commented on the unusual aspects of the occasion:
"It is truly sad," he wrote, " that the Chinese have to give a concert which lets Vienna hear once again something by Lanner and the elder Strauss."
Indeed, almost twenty years elapsed before the next occasion.
New Years Day 1892 brought the Court Opera premiere of Johann Strauss' luckless opera, "Cavalier Pasman" ("Ritter Pazman"). In 1894 "Die Fledermaus" entered the repertoire of the Court Theatre under the "Pasman" conductor, Court Opera Director Wilhelm Jahn. On May 22, 1899, Strauss himself conducted the "Fledermaus" overture at the Court Opera, a memorable occasion, for, only a few days later, on June 3, 1899, the composer died.
In 1921, under the direction of Arthur Nikisch, the Vienna Philharmonic played the "Blue Danube" Waltz at the unveiling of the Johann Strauss memorial in the City Park. This homage was the first indication of the much stronger connection linking the orchestra with this composer. In 1925, in celebration of his birthday centenniel, the Philharmonic honored him with some truly sensational concerts.
At a preliminary celebration on the 13th of June in the courtyard of Schoenbrunn Palace, the orchestra played under the direction of State Opera Director Franz Schalk and Court Conductor Carl Luze; Felix von Weingartner and Luze conducted the Gala Concert on October 25th, the composer's actual birthday; and on December 5th, ringing out the Jubilee Year, Schalk again led an all-Strauss concert, this time in the Music Society's great Golden Hall, the Musikverein.
These triumphant Jubilee Concerts inaugurated a Strauss-renaissance and secured the Waltz King a permanent place in the Vienna Philharmonic's repertoire. In 1926 it was again Felix von Weingartner who conducted the orchestra in a Johann Strauss-concert; in 1928 Strauss was accorded Philharmonic honors under the direction of Erich Kleiber.
A watershed date then followed on August 11, 1929, with an all-Strauss program at the Salzburg Festival, led by the newly invested director of the Vienna State Opera, Clemens Krauss. The program's structure with the overtures to "The Gypsy Baron" and "Die Fledermaus", with famous Waltzes and Polkas, and with the "Perpetual Motion" and "Blue Danube" Waltz as encores was a signpost pointing to future New Years holiday events.
In 1930 Clemens Krauss next presented his credentials as a Johann Strauss-conductor in Vienna. That same year and the two following he conducted further Strauss-concerts in Salzburg;
in 1933 the "Blue Danube" Waltz went on the road in the course of an Italian tour this most famous of all Strauss compositions was performed in the presence of the Pope. For the 1933 Strauss-concert, by now a Salzburg tradition, Krauss added the works of Josef Strauss, thus linking it with the occasion in Badgastein in 1930 when he had first programmed the works of both Strauss brothers, Johann and Josef, together.
Then in 1935 Bruno Walter led a Salzburg concert under the motto, "Viennese Music", and in 1939 Clemens Krauss once again conducted an all-Johann Strauss concert.
The annals of that same year of 1939 register the now-decisive step of founding the New Years Concerts. On the morning of December 31st, Clemens Krauss led the Philharmonic in its "First Special Strauss-Concert", as ever in the storied Musikverein.
The next such concert was presented, not as customary on New Years Eve, but on January 1st, 1941, when Clemens Krauss led the Philharmonic in works by Johann and Josef Strauss in the orchestra's first New Years Day concert. As "Pioneer of Strauss- Culture", Clemens Krauss had surely earned the right to act as founding father of these events. With great pains he had built up and extended the Vienna Philharmonic's Strauss-repertoire; it was only logical that the orchestra invite him to conduct the New Years Concert. From 1942 to 1944 he and the Philharmonic saw the New Year in together in the Musikverein.
In 1945 the event fell victim to the closing phase of World War Two and had to be cancelled, but in 1946 the tradition was resumed under the baton of Josef Krips, and, starting with 1947, Clemens Krauss was once more at the helm. In 1953 the Krauss era marked the re-introduction of the concert on New Years Eve as well, as prelude to the main event the next day. This double-offer by no means diminished the battle for tickets which raged, then as always, among local music-lovers, hopelessly scrambling to be among the lucky New Year‘s Concert goers.
January 1, 1954, was the last time the orchestra and public were able to experience the inspired conducting of Clemens Krauss. His death the following May posed an acute problem for the Philharmonic:
after Krauss, who should, who could continue the tradition of the New Years Concerts?
The happy solution was found in the orchestra's own ranks. Willy Boskovsky, since 1949 First Concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic stepped in and took over, at the orchestra's behest, the direction of the New Years Concerts. The Philharmonic's choice found a positive response with critics and public alike.
"Boskovsky is a most successful combination of orchestra leader and instrumentalist, at one and the same time both First Violinist and Conductor. On the last day of the year, as well as the first, the violin in Vienna moves into a place worthy of itself, namely the first," Hans Weigel wrote.
Boskovsky, who, as a student had started in Vienna's Johann Strauss-Orchstra, filled in sovereign fashion the role of musical First among Equals. Embodying the concertmaster of the old school, as was taken for granted at the time of the Brothers Strauss, the name Boskovsky stood as much for tradition as for the dynamic breakthrough into the Media-Age.
Since 1959 it was not only the radio which was regular guest at the New Years Concerts, but television, too. The traditional Viennese event became a spectacular Eurovision happening, a transformation which had dramatic effects on the formation of the concerts. Dance episodes pre-filmed by the State Opera Ballet provided television audiences with new and opulent visual charms. For millions of viewers, year for year, Boskovsky and the Philharmonic conjured up that very special and unmistakable musical style known as "Viennese", a term at the same time both imprecise and catching.
No other expression would do, not even for Bruno Walter, when, in a letter to Willy Boskovsky in 1961 praising a recording of the New Years Concert, he wrote:
"My daughter has brought me your recording of waltzes and other classic Viennese dances, and my heart compels me to tell you with what joy I have been listening to this genuinely musical and genuinely Viennese outpouring from the hearts of a true musician and his inspired colleagues. How natural this musicmaking is, with what highly rhythmic charm, without seeking after any irrelevent nuances or unsuitable effects; here speaks a virtuoso orchestra, filled with the essence of these brilliant compositions, and led by a musician of deeply kindred and discriminating spirit ..."
Exactly twenty-five times Boskovsky had led the Vienna Philharmonic's concerts. In 1979 he wished his public "Happy New Year" for the last time before being forced for health reasons to lay aside the New Years Concerts' leadership. To maintain his lofty standards the orchestra now turned to great international conductors. Maestro Lorin Maazel, who, for almost twenty years had worked with the Philharmonic in concert- and opera-performances, as well as recordings, assumed control of the New Years Concerts. After Boskovsky, the conducting violonist, came Maazel, the violin-playing conductor. Seven years running, from 1980 to 1986, he was in charge of the New Years Concerts, each of them preserved on recordings.
Since 1986/87 the orchestra has chosen to vary the choice of conductors each year. On January 1st, 1987, Herbert von Karajan led the orchestra, followed by Claudio Abbado (1988), Carlos Kleiber (1989), Zubin Mehta (1990), and once again Abbado (1991). In 1992, the jubilee-year of the Philharmonic, Carlos Kleiber took over the New Years Concert for the second time.
Throughout the world the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year‘s Concert is without doubt the most widely-seen and -heard of all regular musical presentations. Inside Austria it constitutes an important part of the nation's cultural identity. It is not only the Letters to the Editors columns of the country's daily newspapers that reflect how hotly the event is debated year after year. What Philharmonic quality should be, and what duty is or is not owed to tradition is also passionately discussed by many who otherwise never attend a single Philharmonic concert.
The early history of the New Years Concerts is the history of a changeable, and, at the beginning, not unproblematical relationship between the Vienna Philharmonic and Johann Strauss. At first the Waltz King and Vienna's renowned orchestra were divided by the arbitrary boundary-line between "Light" and "Serious" music. Only the most strenuous efforts finally brought together the two contrasting sides of Vienna's music life.
It was November 4th, 1873, when Johann Strauss made his first appearance on the podium of the Royal Imperial Court Opera Orchestra.
In a concert arranged by the "Chinese World Exhibition Commission" he shared conducting honors with Court Conductor Otto Dessoff, with Johann Herbeck, Director of the Royal Imperial Court Opera Orchestra, and with Concertmaster Joseph Hellmesberger.
"The Romanticists" by Josef Lanner, the "Spanish Nobleguard March" by Johann Strauss the Elder, and the "Blue Danube" Waltz were played under the baton of Royal Imperial Court-Ball Director Johann Strauss.
Eduard Hanslick, Vienna's leading critic, commented on the unusual aspects of the occasion:
"It is truly sad," he wrote, " that the Chinese have to give a concert which lets Vienna hear once again something by Lanner and the elder Strauss."
Indeed, almost twenty years elapsed before the next occasion.
New Years Day 1892 brought the Court Opera premiere of Johann Strauss' luckless opera, "Cavalier Pasman" ("Ritter Pazman"). In 1894 "Die Fledermaus" entered the repertoire of the Court Theatre under the "Pasman" conductor, Court Opera Director Wilhelm Jahn. On May 22, 1899, Strauss himself conducted the "Fledermaus" overture at the Court Opera, a memorable occasion, for, only a few days later, on June 3, 1899, the composer died.
In 1921, under the direction of Arthur Nikisch, the Vienna Philharmonic played the "Blue Danube" Waltz at the unveiling of the Johann Strauss memorial in the City Park. This homage was the first indication of the much stronger connection linking the orchestra with this composer. In 1925, in celebration of his birthday centenniel, the Philharmonic honored him with some truly sensational concerts.
At a preliminary celebration on the 13th of June in the courtyard of Schoenbrunn Palace, the orchestra played under the direction of State Opera Director Franz Schalk and Court Conductor Carl Luze; Felix von Weingartner and Luze conducted the Gala Concert on October 25th, the composer's actual birthday; and on December 5th, ringing out the Jubilee Year, Schalk again led an all-Strauss concert, this time in the Music Society's great Golden Hall, the Musikverein.
These triumphant Jubilee Concerts inaugurated a Strauss-renaissance and secured the Waltz King a permanent place in the Vienna Philharmonic's repertoire. In 1926 it was again Felix von Weingartner who conducted the orchestra in a Johann Strauss-concert; in 1928 Strauss was accorded Philharmonic honors under the direction of Erich Kleiber.
A watershed date then followed on August 11, 1929, with an all-Strauss program at the Salzburg Festival, led by the newly invested director of the Vienna State Opera, Clemens Krauss. The program's structure with the overtures to "The Gypsy Baron" and "Die Fledermaus", with famous Waltzes and Polkas, and with the "Perpetual Motion" and "Blue Danube" Waltz as encores was a signpost pointing to future New Years holiday events.
In 1930 Clemens Krauss next presented his credentials as a Johann Strauss-conductor in Vienna. That same year and the two following he conducted further Strauss-concerts in Salzburg;
in 1933 the "Blue Danube" Waltz went on the road in the course of an Italian tour this most famous of all Strauss compositions was performed in the presence of the Pope. For the 1933 Strauss-concert, by now a Salzburg tradition, Krauss added the works of Josef Strauss, thus linking it with the occasion in Badgastein in 1930 when he had first programmed the works of both Strauss brothers, Johann and Josef, together.
Then in 1935 Bruno Walter led a Salzburg concert under the motto, "Viennese Music", and in 1939 Clemens Krauss once again conducted an all-Johann Strauss concert.
The annals of that same year of 1939 register the now-decisive step of founding the New Years Concerts. On the morning of December 31st, Clemens Krauss led the Philharmonic in its "First Special Strauss-Concert", as ever in the storied Musikverein.
The next such concert was presented, not as customary on New Years Eve, but on January 1st, 1941, when Clemens Krauss led the Philharmonic in works by Johann and Josef Strauss in the orchestra's first New Years Day concert. As "Pioneer of Strauss- Culture", Clemens Krauss had surely earned the right to act as founding father of these events. With great pains he had built up and extended the Vienna Philharmonic's Strauss-repertoire; it was only logical that the orchestra invite him to conduct the New Years Concert. From 1942 to 1944 he and the Philharmonic saw the New Year in together in the Musikverein.
In 1945 the event fell victim to the closing phase of World War Two and had to be cancelled, but in 1946 the tradition was resumed under the baton of Josef Krips, and, starting with 1947, Clemens Krauss was once more at the helm. In 1953 the Krauss era marked the re-introduction of the concert on New Years Eve as well, as prelude to the main event the next day. This double-offer by no means diminished the battle for tickets which raged, then as always, among local music-lovers, hopelessly scrambling to be among the lucky New Year‘s Concert goers.
January 1, 1954, was the last time the orchestra and public were able to experience the inspired conducting of Clemens Krauss. His death the following May posed an acute problem for the Philharmonic:
after Krauss, who should, who could continue the tradition of the New Years Concerts?
The happy solution was found in the orchestra's own ranks. Willy Boskovsky, since 1949 First Concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic stepped in and took over, at the orchestra's behest, the direction of the New Years Concerts. The Philharmonic's choice found a positive response with critics and public alike.
"Boskovsky is a most successful combination of orchestra leader and instrumentalist, at one and the same time both First Violinist and Conductor. On the last day of the year, as well as the first, the violin in Vienna moves into a place worthy of itself, namely the first," Hans Weigel wrote.
Boskovsky, who, as a student had started in Vienna's Johann Strauss-Orchstra, filled in sovereign fashion the role of musical First among Equals. Embodying the concertmaster of the old school, as was taken for granted at the time of the Brothers Strauss, the name Boskovsky stood as much for tradition as for the dynamic breakthrough into the Media-Age.
Since 1959 it was not only the radio which was regular guest at the New Years Concerts, but television, too. The traditional Viennese event became a spectacular Eurovision happening, a transformation which had dramatic effects on the formation of the concerts. Dance episodes pre-filmed by the State Opera Ballet provided television audiences with new and opulent visual charms. For millions of viewers, year for year, Boskovsky and the Philharmonic conjured up that very special and unmistakable musical style known as "Viennese", a term at the same time both imprecise and catching.
No other expression would do, not even for Bruno Walter, when, in a letter to Willy Boskovsky in 1961 praising a recording of the New Years Concert, he wrote:
"My daughter has brought me your recording of waltzes and other classic Viennese dances, and my heart compels me to tell you with what joy I have been listening to this genuinely musical and genuinely Viennese outpouring from the hearts of a true musician and his inspired colleagues. How natural this musicmaking is, with what highly rhythmic charm, without seeking after any irrelevent nuances or unsuitable effects; here speaks a virtuoso orchestra, filled with the essence of these brilliant compositions, and led by a musician of deeply kindred and discriminating spirit ..."
Exactly twenty-five times Boskovsky had led the Vienna Philharmonic's concerts. In 1979 he wished his public "Happy New Year" for the last time before being forced for health reasons to lay aside the New Years Concerts' leadership. To maintain his lofty standards the orchestra now turned to great international conductors. Maestro Lorin Maazel, who, for almost twenty years had worked with the Philharmonic in concert- and opera-performances, as well as recordings, assumed control of the New Years Concerts. After Boskovsky, the conducting violonist, came Maazel, the violin-playing conductor. Seven years running, from 1980 to 1986, he was in charge of the New Years Concerts, each of them preserved on recordings.
Since 1986/87 the orchestra has chosen to vary the choice of conductors each year. On January 1st, 1987, Herbert von Karajan led the orchestra, followed by Claudio Abbado (1988), Carlos Kleiber (1989), Zubin Mehta (1990), and once again Abbado (1991). In 1992, the jubilee-year of the Philharmonic, Carlos Kleiber took over the New Years Concert for the second time.
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